Looking back, Rachael Leigh Cook realizes that some elements of her 1999 hit movie weren't exactly all that.
The actress revealed that she and her daughter Charlotte, 9, recently watched She's All That for the first time together. But it wasn't until Rachael pressed play on the romantic comedy, in which she starred alongside Freddie Prinze Jr., that she realized some of the commentary may not have aged well.
"The only thing that's funny about that movie—'cause I let my daughter, who is very recently 9, see it—I was like, 'I don't think there's anything too inappropriate in there,'" she told Us Weekly in an article published Nov. 8. "But some of the language that they use to talk about women—I realize that it's about Freddie's character sort of going on a journey of opening his mind."
"And people were different than these popular crowd kids," she continued. "But it is really pretty disparaging and disrespectful."
As for when those comments came up, Rachael recalled wanting nothing more than to hit fast-forward. "There's body-shaming and other things," she continued. "That I'm like, ‘La la la Charlotte, I don't want you even hearing this.'"
As a refresher, the '90s teen movie centered on the most popular guy in high school (played by Freddie) who makes a bet with friends that he could make any girl popular enough to be prom queen in a matter of weeks, setting his sights on Rachael's uncool art student who becomes just that after undergoing a makeover.
But despite watching the film with a different set of eyes more than two decades later, Rachael—who also shares son, Theodore, 7, with ex Daniel Gillies—shared that she stands by the role.
"I'm not embarrassed to be associated with the movie," she explained. "And it was another time. But it's not great at points. There's stuff in there that's like, it's a little tough to defend in today's day."